Who can afford immortality?
07 Dec 2013
People thought it was neat when Amazon announced drone delivery. I think many of us don't realize or believe half of the technology headed our way in the next 25 years, particularly with regard to the era of neo-humanity and the Kurzweillian Singularity.
Dmitry Itskov is a young Russian billionaire who wants to live forever and create super-human Avatars with fantastic powers. He's already started the 2045 Initiative to figure out how to do it by that date. The problems with the idea of "uploading consciousness" into an Avatar are numerous. Not the least of which is, we don't even understand consciousness, or agree on what makes it up. So on the one hand it seems reasonable to upload more understood chemical/physical properties of memories since we presumably have a decent understanding of how neurobiological memory works.
But assuming this could happen, you run the risk of creating a powerful psychopath, full of intelligence and immortality, and devoid of compassion, empathy, and other emotion. The 2045 Initiative claims that by the time we've given up our human bodies for their Avatar holograms or physical counterparts, war and suffering will no longer be acceptable, and personal spiritual growth will be our main focus. Seems oddly reminiscent of certain mythological deities and demigods to me, has this happened before?
The idea of a second body ala Avatar seems ancient. Ancient mystics and shamans have talked about extra-bodily states, and throughout time it's been given different names including the spirit-body, the astral-body, and the dream-body, as described in various practices from Buddhism to Yoga to Western Esoterica, achievable through techniques such as meditation, lucid dreaming, or psychedelics. Anyone who has experienced or frequently practices lucid dreaming can attest to the profound feeling of an alternate persona whether they believe it's inherent in the local mind or part of a non-local, greater Jungian collective consciousness.
Working in the information security field I am of course interested in the possibilities this new world would bring, although it sounds very much like The Matrix, so one can imagine. We'll hack it to pieces, no doubt.
I'm sure I have some incorrect assumptions here with barely a layman's understanding of neuroscience, philosophy, and the mind-body problem, so please chime in.
Dmitry Itskov is a young Russian billionaire who wants to live forever and create super-human Avatars with fantastic powers. He's already started the 2045 Initiative to figure out how to do it by that date. The problems with the idea of "uploading consciousness" into an Avatar are numerous. Not the least of which is, we don't even understand consciousness, or agree on what makes it up. So on the one hand it seems reasonable to upload more understood chemical/physical properties of memories since we presumably have a decent understanding of how neurobiological memory works.
But assuming this could happen, you run the risk of creating a powerful psychopath, full of intelligence and immortality, and devoid of compassion, empathy, and other emotion. The 2045 Initiative claims that by the time we've given up our human bodies for their Avatar holograms or physical counterparts, war and suffering will no longer be acceptable, and personal spiritual growth will be our main focus. Seems oddly reminiscent of certain mythological deities and demigods to me, has this happened before?
The idea of a second body ala Avatar seems ancient. Ancient mystics and shamans have talked about extra-bodily states, and throughout time it's been given different names including the spirit-body, the astral-body, and the dream-body, as described in various practices from Buddhism to Yoga to Western Esoterica, achievable through techniques such as meditation, lucid dreaming, or psychedelics. Anyone who has experienced or frequently practices lucid dreaming can attest to the profound feeling of an alternate persona whether they believe it's inherent in the local mind or part of a non-local, greater Jungian collective consciousness.
Working in the information security field I am of course interested in the possibilities this new world would bring, although it sounds very much like The Matrix, so one can imagine. We'll hack it to pieces, no doubt.
I'm sure I have some incorrect assumptions here with barely a layman's understanding of neuroscience, philosophy, and the mind-body problem, so please chime in.
Post by 2045 Initiative.